


Oradea, Transylvania, 25 October 1637

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [42]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Book-binding, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Typical Misogyny, Canon Typical Racism, Franco-Spanish War, Gen, Having That Conversation, Hubert is a Chill Dad, Lost in Translation, Period Typical Misogyny, Politics, Rebellion, Sedition, Some Historical Fudging, Thirty Years War, Wartime, period typical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24662749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: It’s not so much that she’sbored– she can always find something to be doing, but still…*Another installment in the long series of pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War.
Relationships: Sylvie Baudin & Hubert Baudin, Sylvie Baudin/Original Character(s)
Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [42]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/944322
Comments: 15
Kudos: 6





	Oradea, Transylvania, 25 October 1637

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/gifts).



“Beniamin?”

“Oh! Oh, Silviya! I didn’t see you.”

She smiles, a little shyly, gives herself a mental shake for it, but can’t help it – he’s that kind of tall, fair, broad-shouldered lad that makes her feel very… well, very feminine, if she’s honest with herself, and honesty’s something she prides herself on, even as she feels herself blushing and berating herself for it.

“Would you sti–?”

“I mean if y–”

“Yes, if y–”

“Yes please.”

They smile at each other, awkwardness navigated successfully. Except that, it seems to her, they don’t so much get away from it as have it drag after them, tied onto their ankles.

“I thought we could maybe go for a walk? By the river?”

“Oh. Yes, you, um, you–”

“Would you, er–”

“– said already, so–”

“– like? To?”

She hitches her smile a little higher. Does _not_ say: I’ve already said yes three times now, and that was just today. Says: “Yes please.”

They fall into step and head towards the river, broad and beautiful, _Crișul Repede_ , not so rapid here, the setting sun gilding it, and she looks sideways up at him and thinks: yeah, this is alright.

“So how are you liking our city, Silviya?”

“Well, it’s very pretty,” she says, not really knowing how to answer that. “The people are friendly,” and my father hasn’t pissed anyone off enough yet for us to have to do a runner. She looks up at him again, swaying against him in a brush of arms, a hint of hips.

He smiles a little, opens his mouth, closes it again.

“And there is a lovely tannery with a stall on the market…”

He ducks his head, smirks, then gestures for them to take the sweep of the river to the east. She nods and he smiles. They stroll on.

“You make books… with the leather. Right?”

“Well, the covers, anyway,” she says, mock-seriously. “The rest i–”

“Yes, yes, sorry. Sorry. What’s in them?”

She smirks up at him. “Paper. And ink. And thread, and a bit of glue…”

“Haha.” He smiles a little, but there’s something like a frown lurking. She tilts her head to one side, waits. “Do you write the books as well?”

“We mostly write «pamphlets».” Dammit, she can’t remember the word in Romanian. “Manifests?” Hmm, right word, but he’s frowning again.

Bugger.

“Anyway,” she says, hurriedly, “we mostly make books for other people. I would say we don’t much mind what goes inside them, but we don’t make them for people who want to use books for «oppression».” Bollocks – another one she doesn’t remember the Romanian for, and really should. “You know – when powerful people say that less powerful people should obey them for no better reason, than, um, anyway, that. Not that. You know?”

They walk on for a quiet while.

“Where are you from, Silvija?”

She takes a couple of breaths before surprising herself with her response: “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean–”

“Because ‘from’ – means a lot, right? Like: where you were born or where your family is from? Or the place you were,” she flails for the word, “where you grew, anyway? Any of those things could be the writing inside, and that’s different from the cover. You know?”

“Oh.”

“Like you – you were born here, your parents were born here, you have lived here all your life. And that’s a lot of where you are ‘from’ but it’s not all of it. My father’s father was «Alsatian», do you know what that means? So he has French and German blood, and «Irish» too from his mother. _My_ mother, there’s not one place she came from – she never stopped moving, all her life. And her blood is «Portuguese» and Spanish and «Berber» and Roma and, for all I know, French and «English» too. And that’s me. That’s me too. I was conceived in England and born in France. Where am I from? Maybe you can tell me.”

She stops and folds her arms, turns to gaze right up at him.

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I was only going to say because your Romanian is very good, and your accent is very pretty and I just wanted–”

He’s blinking awkwardly into the setting sun, all golden, but determined to look at her. And God help her, but she’s weak for a man who blushes so easily. She basks briefly in what looks like genuine admiration from him, looking at her shadow cast on his body, thinking: _my hair must look like it’s on fire!_ before feeling that warmth dwindle.

She feels her eyes tighten with regret and says: “Beniamin? I would like to go home now.”

“Oh. Are you cold?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m cold.” She’d been looking forward to holding hands, maybe even a kiss, because they’ve been here six months and nothing, so really that would have been nice, and she’s enjoyed the way warmth sprang up between them when they met (and the breadth of his shoulders, and wondering how clever his fingers are, having seen some of the fancier leatherwork he’s been putting on the stall, working on between sales and, dammit, stop that!), but she’s also known better, hasn’t she, deep inside herself, hence keeping it light between them until now and–

She repeats: “I would like to go home.”

“Shall I walk you there?”

“Um, no. Thank you.”

“But it’s getting dark.”

“I will be fine, Beniamin, I am always fine, and if you walk me home you will have to walk home in the dark yourself, and it will be even colder, so no thank you, I do not want you getting cold on my «conscience». On my heart.” She puts her hand to her chest, noticing that her fingers really are icy.

“I will see you on the market?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow, then.” He moves a little closer, awkward and coltish and she takes a deep breath, leaning back a little, and smiles (insincerely) before moving away in the direction of home.

When she gets in, having stomped all the way to get her blood moving again, she throws her bag off and aims her coat and scarf at the hooks, then stomps on through to find her father at the table, lamp freshly lit, by the look of it, poring over something, with various crumpled pieces of paper on the table and the floor. She takes a breath, then realises that she had been suppressing rolling her eyes. She’s at home now. She doesn’t need to do that here.

“Ah. Sylvie.” He looks up, focusing slowly, smile warming across him, then frowning a little, taking in her crossed arms, her leaning against the doorway. “Hmm. Not a good day?”

“The day was alright,” she tells him. “The evening was rubbish.”

“Ah.” He looks down, looks up again. “Anything I should know?”

“Boys are stupid?”

“Oh.” He smiles sidelong. “Do I need to go loom at anyone?”

She smirks, then subsides. “You’d have a job – he’s taller than you.”

“I could stand on something.”

She smiles outright for that, rolls her eyes fondly, then wanders toward the larder. “How long are we here for, anyway?” she asks. “Also: did you eat anything?”

“I ate, er, something,” she thinks he mutters, then calls through: “Why do you ask?”

“So I know whether you’re going to pass out in the middle of a pile of paper. Again.”

“Ah, yes. I meant: why do you ask about moving?”

“Six months is a long time. For us–”

“And the pretty boys are all stupid?”

She sighs. “Apparently.”

“A shame,” he says. Then: “What about the pretty girls?”

She feels her eyes go wide as she stares at the shelves, somehow thinking “We need more flour,” and “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” at the same time.

She blinks rapidly, takes a deep breath, turns, and walks back towards him. He’s half-turned in his chair, arm propped across the back, gazing mildly at her.

“Well,” she says, “it isn’t exactly Athens here.”

“Or Naples,” he agrees.

“Christ, you’ve got sharp eyes.” She feels her breath go out behind the flippant remark, her shoulders settle, moves around to sit opposite him.

“Had,” he says, scrubbing at them. “Turns out age catches up with you.”

“Do we need to get you spectacles?” She tries to balance her tone between teasing and caring, because really: if he needs them, she can’t think of anything worse than not being able to see your own writing. But Hubert will resist anyone making a fuss with every last fibre of his being.

“Mmh. Maybe. _Anyway_ ,” he says, as though he hasn’t (almost) admitted to an infirmity, “is this going to be like Plovdiv? Is that why you’re asking?”

“Listen, just because we had to move on because of _me_ for once…”

“You never did tell me what he said that got you so riled…”

“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes again. But it’s been long enough now. “He quoted the Song of Solomon at me.”

“Well, if you’re going to be quoting the Bible to impress someone, it’s at least poeti–”

“One-five,” she cuts in, watches his eyes scroll through that prodigious memory and come up against–

“Oh.”

“See? And then he put his hand _right_ into my hair.”

He pulls a face. “Oh dear. I quite liked him,” he confesses.

She pulls an unimpressed one back. “That’s because he hung on your every word.”

“Cynic.”

“That’s your fault.”

“I’m inclined to give your mother at least _some_ credit for that one.”

“Anyway, are we staying?”

His frown deepens and he looks down at the paper between his elbows, heaves something like a sigh.

“What is it?”

“Who was he?”

“Eh? Oh. Beniamin, from the market.”

“The cordwainer?”

“He wouldn’t call himself that, I don’t think.”

“Not yet. But you can see the love in his work. He won’t always be just a tanner, that one.”

“Father, are you trying to match me with a Nice Local Boy?”

He smiles tiredly. “Perish the thought, love.”

“No, no, it’s a _great_ idea! I can get married and settle down here. Learn how to embroider napkins and knit properly. I could make baby blankets with ‘Liberty, Equality, Justice’ hidden in the folds, and all my pamphlets would be on the back of fans. Slowly, patiently, I’d bake them cakes and listen to their stories, and they’d come to trust me enough to ask about herbs, and listen to my advice about how _not_ to have children…”

“A slow revolution, embedded in generations.”

“Yeah, they’d bless my name, and not make faces, at least where I could see them, at the stubborn darkness of my own kids. Because I really should, you know, just to allay suspicion…”

“Sylvie…”

“What?”

“What do I always say about sarcasm?”

She shrugs. “That its root is in the Greek word for stripping flesh from bones?”

Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes. “You know,” he says, voice straining as he heaves himself out of the chair with both hands flat on the table, “some of the most vituperative statements I’ve fielded over the last 20 years have been on the subject of having taught you to read. One man even described it as an ‘abomination’.” A pause for dramatic effect. “I’m beginning to see their point.”

One side of her mouth lifts. “Forgive me, O Patriarch, I will humbly strive to bury every language I’ve ever learned to read, becoming a truly dutiful scion, and marrying well, obviously. Ooh, or should I be working myself to the bone, sacrificing my youth so you can continue showering the world with your wisdom?”

“You see,” he calls back from the larder, “I put this abominable attitude all down to you being conceived in England. Terrible place. Do we not have any bread?”

“Bottom shelf.”

“Why’s it on the bottom shelf?”

“Presumably because you put it there?”

A pause. “Well, now, there it is.”

“So you were telling me why England’s to blame…? I thought they were all terribly well-behaved and loved their King…” The paper that had been sitting between Hubert’s elbows catches her eye and she reaches a finger forward to pull it idly towards her. “Apart from trying to blow his father up, obviously,” she adds.

“Mmh. Well, his father was a great promulgator of the notion of _parens patriae_ , equating modern kings to the god-pharaohs of old.”

“So they didn’t love that.”

“Well, the English might be slightly reluctant, but it’s definitely not a very Scottish philosophy, it would appear.” He chuckles. “Now, I think you’ll like this: I heard recently that, over the summer, when they tried to introduce the English Book of Prayers to Scottish churches, they rioted.”

“Hah!”

“In particular, it was a waiting-woman who threw the first stool, and the first insult.”

“Okay, wait. Hold on. Firstly: what’s a waiting-woman; secondly: _stool?_ ”

“A waiting-woman, apparently, gets in early and waits on a folding stool to keep a good place for her master in church, and yes: she threw hers.”

“I love it.”

“I thought you might.” Food in hands, he pauses by the fire. “It won’t be long, I think.”

“What?”

“Revolution in Scotland.”

She feels her eyebrows go up. “Really?”

“Mmh.” He frowns, eyes distant. “England too. Maybe…”

“Maybe what…?”

He flicks his head away, shuffles to poke the fire, add some wood to it. “How did we do on the stall today?”

Her eyes narrow. “Worrying about the money is my job, remember? And we did fine. A couple of orders out, another in. We make more on the doctoring end this time of year, anyway.”

He nods absently.

“So what’s up?”

“Mmh? Oh, nothing, nothing.”

“Try again.”

“You’re impertinent and nosy?”

“Ah, the authority of my father, very convincing, nay compelling; I must attend. Shall I wash your feet for you? Does that come before or after the mandatory beating to keep me compliant?”

“Hah.” He busies himself with toasting cheese. “Would you like some?”

“Yes please.”

She smiles, then looks down at what she’s been drumming her fingers on. “You’re amending the Discourse?” She struggles to keep the surprise from her voice. There are crossings-out and scribbles and… she reaches over to grab one of the more energetically crumpled ones and smooths it methodically. On this one is simply scrawled **NO!** She blinks.

He makes a sound somewhere between, she thinks, uncomfortable and impatient, and maybe somewhat guilty, and she keeps gazing at him, waiting, as he puts his hand through his hair a couple of times, face ostensibly averted to watch the food over the fire. He sighs deeply once, then twice, then says: “We should make a big stew tomorrow.”

“Hubert…”

“No, look, let’s get some food in us first, eh?”

“All right, I’ll clear the table.”

A while later, plate empty, she pushes it to one side very deliberately, looks up to catch his eye, and says: “So?”

Another deep breath. “The Discourse. You know it was… born in France.”

“Like me.”

A sad half-smile. “Like you.” He looks down at the table, prods it with a forefinger, starts to scrawl patterns, seemingly idly. She waits again. “How would you feel about going back there?”

“I don’t even remember it. How could I? The only thing I know about it is what you’ve told me. French is my first language and… was I even walking when we left?”

Another little quirk of smile. “Not quite.”

She shrugs. “It’s as good a place as any, I suppose. But why now?”

His face brightens slightly. “Did we tell you why French?”

She rolls her eyes. “It was the only language the pair of you had in common at first. _Come on_ : why would we go back?”

“I’m feeling…” his face scrunches as he searches for words. “Disconnected, I suppose.”

“From your home?”

“Not that, so much. But… well, yes. But the _fire_ , you know? Where it was kindled.”

“Ah.” She pauses then says, straight-faced: “And you’re feeling your age and have a sentimental urge to show your only daughter where your life began.”

He looks up sharply to see her twinkling. “All right, yes,” he admits, acerbically. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” She smirks merrily at him.

“And there are still so many places to…”

“Pass on the good word to? Plant some seeds?”

“Yes,” he nods, approving her choice. “There’s fertile ground between here and there, soaked in the blood of the innocent.”

She nearly teases him: _and ready for some extra bullshit_ , but thinks it’s not quite the time yet. And she realises now, seeing a little more purpose building under Hubert’s skin, how much she’s missed that, how much, in fact, she’s been missing it for a while now, felt in her own deep-down itch at the… _niceness_ of this city, despite the territorial tension.

Then: “Wait, hold on. _Ground_ between here and… you want to travel _straight across?!_ ”

“Yes.” He’s nodding, all that old certainty gathering.

She’s chuckling, partly from the absurdity, partly from fondness, partly – she’ll confess – from nerves. “Father, you do know there’s a _war_ between here and Paris…?”

He nods. “And I mean to bear witness to it.”

“Well then,” she says, blinking, absorbing, “we’d best get planning…”

He outright smiles at this. “Vadoma would approve.”

“I’m sure she would,” she grins back, thinking of her face the last time she saw her, eyes already set on the horizon, thinks: yes, my mother would definitely approve. Says aloud: “But she’d insist we get a decent horse and wagon.”

Eyes bright, they clear the table again, and set to making lists, starting to feel themselves again.

**Author's Note:**

> Right, this is the short version of the background to writing this:
> 
> When I was asking around as to what people wanted to see in this Epic Project of Doom™ I’ve committed to, [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig) asked for some insight into the lives of our favourite rebels, Sylvie and Hubert Baudin. We talked about where we thought they might have travelled into Paris from, to end up in Saint Antoine with the dispossessed, and discussed their potential origins (including: where is Sylvie’s mum?). We were due to meet the Baudins in 1638 (and we will again), but a) somehow I got myself thinking about how long it would take to get them from where I’d bunged them to where I wanted to meet them, therefore when they’d have to leave, and b) I wanted to break up the Paris-based plotlines with something else, without bringing forward what I’ve got planned for our next visit to the Front in November.
> 
> The first problem I had in writing about the Baudins was finding out what their bloody name was! The subtitles for episode 2 (The Hunger) have it as Bodin. The fandom wiki has it as Bodaire. I’ve seen other variations along the way. Neither of these (nor the others) matched Aramis’s pronunciation of the name in e2. Long story slightly shorter, after arguing with some people on Facebook, one of the more sympathetic ones wrote to [Simon Allen](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2006136/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr4), the showrunner for season 3 and, among other things, asked him that question. It came back Baudin (which does match the pronunciation).
> 
> Having found that most of the variations seem to have very varied etymological roots (including German and Irish, fitting for the actor who played Hubert, whose accent comes through quite strongly), I decided on similarly mixed origins for Sylvie’s parents, which is convenient since I’d already decided that German border characters have Irish accents. And look: here was someone who seemed to be asking, conveniently enough, when I needed him to say something at least a touch vexing to Sylvie.
> 
> Her clothes suggest something quite Eastern European with perhaps a touch of Roma, so why not have them in Eastern Europe? Now to find somewhere that existed at the time and wasn’t being fought over by the various actors in the Thirty Years War. I’ll go into more detail at some point on my [tumblr](http://animanightmare.tumblr.com) at some point, but [Oradea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradea) was a good choice for a number of reasons (and a bad one for others, but I was committed by the time I’d found those).
> 
>  _The Discourse_ refers to the damning pamphlet that Athos finds in Sylvie’s rooms. You can see what I’ve made of that so far [here](https://animanightmate.tumblr.com/post/618939002294288384/bury-your-sad) or wait until I do it properly in the main story timeline.
> 
> Oh, and the woman throwing the stool was [Jenny Geddes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Geddes), found totally by accident when looking up something else about Charles I and figuring the timing was perfect to have Hubert tell a delighted Sylvie about it.
> 
> Oh, and yes – people really did have spectacles (not called glasses, at least in English, until a [little bit later](https://www.etymonline.com/word/glasses) than this) from [well before the 17th Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses#Precursors), though they are unlikely to have been particularly cheap.


End file.
